The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

  His lips twisted in a smile and got one in return from the server as she caught his eye.

  An equal opportunity killer, that’s what I am.

  A cruiser went past, its light flashing, splitting traffic in front of it.

  They haven’t a clue. If they knew what’s in my basement, this café would have been surrounded.

  He frowned as he eyed his reflection in a dark window of the café.

  By now the cops should have gotten the letter. They will get the other gift too. Maybe I should send copies to the paper.

  Life should be interesting now. It’ll hop and jump.

  An image came to his mind, a body trembling in his basement as he brought the knife down.

  Hops and jumps.

  He rose and threw a bill which included a generous tip and flashed a smile at the server as he left.

  I might kill her after all. She has gorgeous skin. None of the others had that kind of skin.

  Forty minutes later he reached his home in the Bronx, an end-of-street semi-detached house in a residential neighborhood that witnessed a low crime rate. Rows of houses lined the single street on either side, cars parked on the street; children’s toys lined one front garden.

  Families grew up on the street, kids went to school, moms and dads went to work.

  He smirked. And a killer lives here.

  The neighboring home was empty, giving him all the privacy he needed.

  Of course it was. I own that one.

  He walked normally to the door, just another resident coming home after a hard day’s work, kicked the door shut and headed to the utility room. He opened a concealed electronic panel, which opened the door to the basement.

  Smells hit him immediately, made him dizzy, blood rushed to his head.

  This is why I kill.

  He sealed the door over him and walked down a narrow staircase, flipping on light switches as he moved down. It was sound proofed and had plastic sheeting on the floor.

  Things can get messy in here.

  Two large glass tanks stood in a corner under a set of bright lights. Each one of them contained a body, a woman’s body. Christine Kohler and Peggy Krantz stared sightlessly at him as he approached the tanks, tapped on the glass and smiled a hello.

  He had disposed of McCallum reluctantly. At that time he hadn’t known how and where to store her body. But then he had seen this art show on TV. Some guy preserving dead animals in formaldehyde.

  Why shouldn’t I have my own exhibition?

  Space proved to be a problem. Only two could fit in. Kohler and Krantz occupied those, but he was left with a dilemma when he killed Rachel Saunders. He finally turned to a contractor.

  The contractor was someone he had used before and came highly recommended. He didn’t even blink when the Flayer asked him. The Flayer wrapped Saunders’ body, after removing his souvenirs, and accompanied the contractor’s men and made sure they disposed of it without having a look at it.

  She’s carbon now.

  Stacks of shelves lined walls, shelves containing body parts of previous victims, winches and tackles. A toolbox held all that he needed for his trade, knives, scalpels, hammers, and forceps. There were wooden frames and sheets of glass on one shelf.

  Behind a rack of shelves, almost invisible against the wall, was a door. The crack between the door and wall could be detected only by close examination.

  The door led to a tunnel, which opened into the basement of his neighboring home. That basement was stacked with food, water, blankets, batteries, and a couple of guns... enough provisions to last through a long siege.

  That tunnel was his escape route.

  If the cops came knocking, he could either hide out in the next-door basement, or he could flee from that neighboring house. It had taken him a year using different sets of contractors to complete the tunnel.

  Most killers don’t even have a plan B.

  I have a plan C and a plan D.

  It was late evening, traffic snarls and taillights filled their vision when Zeb drove them back in silence as each one of them contemplated the fate of the missing women. He took a longer route as he went past Regina Hunnicker’s home, circled the park and just as he hung a left to take them back to the office, his phone rang.

  Meghan leaned forward, punched a button on the central console and Chang’s voice filled the vehicle.

  His voice was strained. ‘Where’re you guys?’

  ‘Nearly at our office.’

  ‘I think you should head back.’

  He went silent for a moment and in the background they heard Pizaka’s ‘tell them.’

  ‘He’s struck again.’

  Rubber burned and horns raged as Zeb floored it and the vehicle leapt forward brutally and traffic parted ahead of it.

  ‘Zeb, you’ve got a profile in mind haven’t you?’ Beth asked him from the rear. She always sat in the rear; she said she liked being chauffeured.

  ‘Uh uh. Let’s wait till we get to One PP.’ One Police Plaza was the NYPD’s headquarters, where Rolando had his office.

  Chang greeted them wordlessly and led them to a large conference room where Rolando and Pizaka awaited. There were a few other cops that Chang introduced them to swiftly, along with a woman, Melanie Krause, who was their top profiler.

  The Commissioner had his game face on, but Zeb read his posture, he was seething.

  Rolando’s not happy. Wonder why.

  The answer came in seconds when Pizaka pushed a letter across to them. ‘We got this two weeks back. A bureaucratic fuckup jammed it somewhere and it got to Jerry and I only today, just after you guys left.’

  I have become better. Have you?

  The rest of the sheet was blank as was its rear.

  Meghan scanned their faces. ‘This is from him?’

  Pizaka’s lips tightened as he handed them a photo frame.

  Meghan looked at it blankly for a moment before her eyes dawned with understanding. She grimaced, pushed back her chair and rushed out of the room. Beth’s face was pale as she handed the frame to Zeb.

  It was a plain wood frame, present in millions of homes and in bedrooms. It had two sheets of glass between which photographs would be sandwiched and memories kept alive.

  This one didn’t have any happy, smiling face. It had a small fragment, ten inches across, ten inches down, brown, rubber-like.

  Not rubber.

  Skin.

  Human skin.

  Chang rubbed his eyes tiredly. ‘Our forensic guys analyzed it; they believe it’s about a month old. They said it belongs to a woman, in her late thirties or early forties, who took good care of her body.’

  Meghan, back and more composed, took the frame and studied it. ‘And this is from the same perp, because?’

  Chang reached beneath the desk and brought out a box which still had its gift wrapping on it.

  ‘Identical to the three previous boxes. In fact the ribbon seems to be from the same spool according to forensics. Something about the way the individual threads are stretched.’

  ‘The language, the tone, the fonts in the letter; they are all identical as well,’ Zeb commented as he examined the box and its wrapping. He looked at the two lead detectives.

  Pizaka shook his head bitterly. ‘No prints. Nothing.’

  ‘Who’s missing?’

  Pizaka pressed a button on a clicker and a photograph appeared on a wall. ‘Rachel Saunders, forty-three years old; she owned a successful party management business in Manhattan. She took a break from the business four months back and stayed at home to write a book. Her husband works in a shipping company, a fourteen-year-old boy who goes to private school. She disappeared forty days back from their town home. She had gone for a run with a friend in the evening near her home, a regular thing. While returning, she and her friend split. Saunders never came home.’

  Zeb looked at the attractive, blonde woman on the wall for a long while.

  Fingers from the first three, skin from this latest vict
im. She’s probably dead and he’s probably removed all her – no, not probably. He has done just that. Sending that piece is his message, his taunt. He’s into torture, maybe rape.

  Why did it take so long for the cops to know Saunders was missing?

  He switched his gaze to Rolando.

  ‘More than a month and you knew only now. Another bureaucratic snarl?’

  The Commissioner’s eyes said it all, but he didn’t acknowledge it.

  ‘I want you on board. The same arrangement as last time; Pizaka and Jerry lead this, they have fifty other detectives working with them, but I want you to join the party too. You bring your expertise and help us nab this scumbag.’

  Zeb and his team had worked with the NYPD previously to apprehend another serial killer. More used to hunting terrorists and gangbangers, it was the first time Zeb had worked on a serial killer case, but the collaboration with the cops had gone down very well. There had been thinly veiled hostility initially from the lesser ranks, but their professionalism won the hardened cops over.

  That and success. Apprehending a perp was all that mattered and Zeb had helped them nail that one.

  I had thought working with the cops, their rules, would stifle me. But it’s no different to working on agency missions.

  The jungles are the same, they’re just painted different.

  The killers are the same.

  ‘You’re sure this comes from Saunders?’

  ‘She was a regular blood donor in a few hospitals. Yeah. It’s hers.’

  He said to Rolando. ‘Just so you know –’

  Rolando waved impatiently. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know about the McCallum kids.’ A small smile grew on his face as he thawed for the first time. ‘I know Regina Hunnicker. I was your reference.’

  Chang stood up and rubbed his hands. ‘All right, what’s the profile, Melanie? What kind of creep are we hunting?’

  Krause stood up and smiled at Zeb. ‘Let’s hear it from Zeb first. I’m sure he and the twins have a profile in mind.’

  Meghan started. ‘Educated. Intelligent. Confident.’

  ‘Why’s he educated?’ Krause challenged.

  ‘It’s the way he uses words, uses grammar.’ Meghan held the note up. ‘He’s printed this on a computer so a spell check program would have helped him, but his choice of words suggests an above average education.’

  ‘Very good. What else?’

  ‘He’s targeting professional women, attractive women, women who have a wider sphere of influence than most victims. They move in a particular social circle.’

  Krause nodded encouragingly at Zeb’s assessment. Many killers targeted vulnerable people, street women, the poor, and children. This one didn’t.

  ‘And what does that say?’

  ‘He has access to those circles. He’s comfortable there.’

  Beth was doubtful. ‘He’s wealthy? I thought serial killers came from poor backgrounds.’

  ‘Not always,’ Zeb commented.

  ‘Gary Heidnik had half a million dollars’ worth of assets when he was arrested. He had murdered two women and had raped and tortured four others. He was executed in Pennsylvania. Russell Williams, who was arrested in Canada, was a colonel in the Canadian Army. He killed two women, sexually assaulted two others and broke into several other women’s’ homes. His dad was a scientist, his mom a psychotherapist. Not the kind of background you would normally associate with serial killers.’

  Zeb continued. ‘But this doesn’t mean our man’s wealthy himself. He could work in a nail bar patronized by professional women for instance.’

  ‘He wants to be caught.’ Meghan shouted suddenly, blushed, and apologized when all eyes turned to her.

  ‘Great point,’ Krause beamed. ‘Those notes to us and to the press. He not only wants to brag, but has a deep-rooted desire to be caught. A subconscious one that even he’s not aware of. Our man is smart – he’s most certainly a man because of the gender pick of his victims – but criminals always think they are. It’s their pride and arrogance that brings them down eventually.’

  ‘He’s deliberately targeting professional, attractive women. That’s another taunt to us. Those notes are him saying, I’ll snatch these highly desired and admired women. What’ll you do about that? Those two notes have all the words in bold type. It is his way of being in our face.’ Zeb added and got a confirmation nod from Krause.

  He wheeled around suddenly and snatched the sheet from Meghan’s hands and sniffed it. His eyes widening, he looked at Chang. ‘What did you get?’

  The cop laughed grimly. ‘I thought you had lost your touch.’ He answered the twins’ blank looks. ‘If you bring that sheet closer to your face, you can smell chemicals. The envelope carried the odor too.’

  Beth took the note back, smelled it and passed it onto her sister. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a mixed bag,’ Chang replied, ‘but the strongest trace residue is formaldehyde.’ He shifted his butt uneasily as his words slowed. ‘Formalin, which is formed by gassing formaldehyde, is widely used to preserve organs.’

  Beth sucked her breath sharply. ‘He’s keeping souvenirs preserved in that chemical.’

  ‘Yeah, what we figured. There were traces of cooking oil, specifically olive oil, too.’

  ‘You ran tests on the previous messages and those boxes?’

  ‘We did and got nothing.’

  ‘On the skin?’

  ‘We got the same traces.’

  She squeezed her eyes tight as if to shut out images and whispered. ‘Transference. He kills, cooks, eats, and prints in the same place.’

  Zeb smelled the sheet again. ‘Any exotic chemical you can identify? That can give us something.’

  ‘Nope.’

  A door slammed in the distance, cops laughed, traffic hummed faintly through the thick windows, all normal, but for the two objects on the desk.

  Rolando sighed heavily, got to his feet and pulled on thick leather gloves, winter was making its presence felt. ‘Get him gentlemen, ladies. Get him before the city spirals into fear.’

  Zeb rose and the twins followed. ‘You need to be prepared for what happens next. He’ll kill again. In two weeks. Most likely he’ll inform the press this time.’

  Pizaka flared. ‘And you know this how?’

  ‘He said he’s gotten better. We have no reason to doubt him. Abduction and killing of this kind requires planning, requires a place where he can dismember the victims. I reckon he’s got the place. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got a list of targets. He went a month between the previous three abductions. Then, I reckon he was less prepared. Now, he can abduct a woman every two weeks.’

  Krause was nodding. ‘This guy’s following a pattern. His cooling off period will shorten, so what Zeb just said sounds reasonable.’

  Rolando brows came together. ‘The press? Why do you see that happening?’

  ‘He sent you the note and the frame two weeks back. He might think you aren’t taking him seriously.’

  The Commissioner swore softly and jerked his head at the twins and Zeb to follow him to the elevator bank.

  He broke the silence once. ‘We’ll get him?’

  He looked into Zeb’s dark eyes and got his answer even before he got a reply.

  ‘Yeah. But he’ll get other victims first.’

  Chapter 5

  October 15th - 21st

  The murder board went up in Zeb’s Columbus Avenue office the next day, a map of the city with four pins to mark the homes of the four victims, a fifth pin for the parking lot.

  Beth tapped a finger against her lips as she studied it. ‘This isn’t right. Those are not the murder locations. None of them were abducted at home.’

  Her sister disagreed. ‘The board is still useful. It tells us the geography he covers. It stays.’

  Meghan turned to her desk, printed out profiles of the four victims and handed them over to Zeb and Beth. Zeb looked at the sheets, but his mind was elsewhere, on something Meghan had said
.

  McCallum was grabbed near her home. What about the others?

  Beth called Chang in response to his query and after a laugh and a short conversation, she hung up.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘He says twelve hours and you haven’t made progress? All four were last seen close to their homes.’

  They looked at Zeb expectantly, he looked back at them. ‘What does that tell us?’

  Meghan unfolded a finger. ‘He knew where they lived.’

  ‘Yeah. What else?’

  ‘He knew their routine.’

  ‘You’re getting warmer.’

  Beth bounced in her seat. ‘This means he followed them for some period. Those neighborhoods, someone hanging around would stick out. We should check out cameras, neighbors.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ Zeb said and when he saw the disappointment in her face, he added. ‘The first three disappearances are four years old. That trail is not cold, it’s non-existent. But check with Chang if they’re pursuing this angle on the Saunders case.’

  Another call, another laugh, a middle finger went up in the air even though Chang couldn’t see it.

  ‘He says he knows how to do his job. He’ll let us know if they find anything.’

  ‘Ask him if we can look into the women’s credit cards, bank accounts, all that stuff.’

  She paused and yelled back at Zeb. ‘Yeah, as long as you don’t transfer large sums of money.’

  Meghan joined the three-way conversation. ‘Tell him he’s on a roll today.’

  Beth dutifully reported back the message on the phone, chuckled and hung up. ‘He said Pizaka brought the donuts today. It has made his day.’

  Zeb stretched out, placed his feet on his desk and went back to the sheets Meghan had printed. All four came from similar humble backgrounds; all had worked hard, and had benefitted from a few pieces of luck.

  Comfortable homes, stable relationships, reasonably wealthy, hard working.

  Hard work?

  He riffled the pages.

  All four had the same routine. Home to work, and then back home again, with an occasional dinner with clients or girlfriends. Weekends with family and vacations to Florida, Europe, South America.